How To Create High-Quality Video Lessons For Your Typical Classroom
My name is George Koinakis; I come from Greece, my major is in Physics, and my M.Sc in Meteorology and Technology Enhanced Learning. For the last 25 years I keep teaching Physics of all levels, both in traditional and online classes. The experience I want to share with you is how a teacher could build a digital library of high quality video lessons without making anything else but… teaching in a typical classroom.
Let’s take it from the very beginning.
How It All Started
In 2011 I bought my first projector together with an interactive whiteboard and started using it in my daily teaching. One day, one of my students was sick and I was informed by phone by his mother that he would be absent. At that moment an idea passed from my mind. I told his mother that her son would not miss the lesson because I would record it and then upload it on our e-class as a video lesson.
This way, my student would be somehow present and would not need an extra lesson to cover his absence in the material I taught. The mother was excited; we tried it and, yes, it worked! The student returned to the lesson the next time, having attended the recorded lecture and being prepared to the same degree as the rest of his classmates.
Me teaching in my classroom
The greater advantage of the whole process was the availability the student had to watch the lecture again and again and make sure that he had understood everything in depth (to be honest with you, he was not my best student; so it wasn’t a common situation to see him studying the way he did via the video lesson…).
Building A Digital Library
Today, six years after that day, I am proud of having a personal digital library containing more than 1000 hours of video lessons. These hours would be ‘’lost’’ for the students who were absent for some reason, and it would cost an additional number of private lessons -if possible- in order to cover the lost material in an appropriate way.
Maybe someone thinks that creating a digital library is complicated or expensive but, believe me, it isn’t. Let me tell you what you need:
- Equipment.
Computer, projector, and an interactive board or a digital tablet. - Software.
Teleconference, digital whiteboard, and audio-video editing. - Learning Management System.
An e-class (Moodle etc.) or anything similar (even Dropbox can do your job…).
By connecting our computer to the projector and the interactive whiteboard or digital pen software, we can start the process of sharing our desktop so that everything we write is projected on the screen and recorded during the session. The sound of teacher and student speech is also recorded, and its quality depends on the size of the classroom, the number of students, and the microphone quality. The teacher's concern should be to be present near the microphone as well to ensure quietness in the classroom and clear speech by students who need to be aware of the whole project.
I dare say that the process introduces another culture to the lesson. Professor and students must slightly adjust their attitude so that the recorded lecture would be qualitative and therefore functional. At the end of the lesson, the teacher stops the recording and the lesson is stored in the desired format (e.g. wmv, mp4, etc.) which can be forwarded directly to the student or stored in the digital classroom.
Final Word
It’s rather obvious that a teacher who decides to follow this path will have to spend a certain time on practicing with the best tools and processes, but after a few weeks the whole thing becomes a routine. Try it: Your students will become better learners and the parents will bless you for not getting them into trouble.
Imagine how many hours are lost on an annual basis due to sickness, severe weather events, or other reasons. Technology is here to help educators and students solve problems that there is no reason to exist. Τhe costs of equipment and software are rather reasonable, and the result will get you the best value for money ratio during the first 1-2 years. The main obstacle is the prejudice about the effectiveness of eLearning methods, like this one, and we need to overcome it as soon as possible.
Have a wonderful teaching day!
